Shadowlands

Progressive democracy has been perhaps the most stable of political systems in world history. It has guided and empowered the most successful governments the world has known. To disparage its basic framework is to belittle ourselves and the wisdom of our ancestors. It has become so fundamental to our basic belief systems that we experience great difficulty in admitting its deepest flaws – not those of shallower nature like electoral reform, but of fundamentals, such as equity and individual opportunity.The cracks in our democratic traditions are now becoming more apparent with each and every quarter of economic decline, of an emerging society of class structures, of what Ambrose Bierce once described as “the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” The obvious arcing of institutional politics towards the influence of those with wealth and an increasingly stifling power is now almost beyond debate.This coming Sunday, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, I have a piece in the Huffington Post about the great President’s ability to take public sentiment into account during difficult days of transition. More than that, he was a leader in the process of assisting his country towards “a new birth of freedom, and a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Such a pursuit was once considered the noblest function of government on either side of the border. Obviously we’re farther from that ideal than at any other time in recent memory. The rank partisanship in the US and Canada has all but guaranteed further decline, except for those tenaciously holding on to power and refusing to democratize it.Politics always did funny things to people, but these days it’s turning them into things they’re not. Observe this picture for a minute. It’s a classic National Geographic photo of camels moving across a desert. The problem is that what you see aren’t camels at all but their shadows. The thin white strips are actually the camels themselves, taken from directly overhead, but at a time of day where their shadows become increasingly extended. It reaches the point where the observer mistakes the shadow for the real thing, which itself is barely visible.This is what politics increasingly does. No political representative talks about it because it calls into question their own substance. Good and decent people become so identified with their party and leader that they increasingly become smaller as their political shadow grows ever more vast. They can no longer fully remain true to themselves, depending more on their image as political representatives than citizens charged with representing their constituencies. The longer they retain their position the more they resemble their leader and the less they represent their own community. Some buck this trend; most don't.This is one of the great tragedies of politics, natural though it is. Increasingly it is their shadow that is perceived and they permit citizens to buy into it because they seem larger than life. But eventually the voter sees through it, especially when the interests of the community take second place to that of the party in times of local challenge.This is where authenticity becomes the only true currency that matters in politics and in citizenship. Any professional becomes very good at persuading the listener that they are really interested. In most cases that’s simply not the case, but the show must go on lest the vote be lost.There are only two ways to know authenticity. The first is that you can truly sense it in the person who essentially lives his or her life for their own personal standards and not those of anyone else. And the second way is by observing the life of the person. Are they more at home in Ottawa or the provincial capital than at home? Is her or she a true champion of the community or of the party? Can they criticize their own party when they feel it is wrong? Will they defend the person from their own riding even though they aren’t of the proper party? Increasingly it is becoming difficult to discover the genuine article, in part because politics itself can become a shadow.I recently spoke with an author who had penned a work on John A. MacDonald – Canada’s first prime minister. “He was a great nation builder, a true hero for Canadians to emulate,” he said sincerely. “He was the kind of Conservative that inspired me, and he has done so ever since. But we aren’t like that any more – Conservatives, I mean. We’re a shadow of our former selves and would be willing to divide the country in order to keep power. We’re nothing like John A. anymore.”Now that was authentic, and his use of the word “shadow” serves as the inspiration for this post. But it can be true of any party and any representative serving it. People can lose themselves in the party instead of their community – the “conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” If authenticity is ever to be uncovered again, it will likely emerge more from local community efforts than the party system. I know some fine politicians and citizens whose substance far exceeds their shadow, but they are becoming increasingly rare in a world where an accompanying shadow is more vital than a vibrant community.